


My Course of Heart

by RobinWritesChirps



Category: The Trail to Oregon! - Team Starkid
Genre: Canon Compliant, Character Study, Complicated Relationships, F/M, Family Feels, Family Fluff, Fluff and Angst, Gen, Implied/Referenced Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Post-Canon, Pre-Canon, References to Depression, Slice of Life
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-07
Updated: 2020-09-07
Packaged: 2021-03-07 01:55:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,449
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26345224
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RobinWritesChirps/pseuds/RobinWritesChirps
Summary: Seventeen and pregnant, not what I had in mind. Her daddy was a farmer but not the wealthy kind.A character study on TTO’s Mother throughout her life from just before she had her daughter till her baby girl is all grown up. I take what canon gives me and I try to dig a little.
Relationships: Jack Bauer Dikrats/Slippery When Wet Dikrats, Mouthface Dikrats & Slippery When Wet Dikrats
Comments: 16
Kudos: 20





	My Course of Heart

**Author's Note:**

> I’ve come to a breakthrough as far as writing TTO fic goes: I can simply use the names that Son suggests in Gone to Oregon! Richie Johnny Emily and Peter and Sue. This fic (and all fics from now on) is gonna use Richie for Grandpa, Johnny for Father, Emily for Daughter, Peter for Son and Sue for Mother, because that’s the repartition that fits best with how I perceive each name in relation to the characters’ personalities. From now on that’s all the names I’m going to use for this family, because the funny names joke is hilarious on stage but has never translated as well in my writing.

15

After one short and quick growth spurt, Sue remained stuck at half child and half woman in the worst of both worlds and grew the determination to make the best of it. She had hopes beyond her small body, beyond this small town. Her dreams were as big as mountains and if only she had the time, she might move oceans and plains and the whole world if she wanted. When she danced, she felt as free as a bird and she knew that she would take off and fly much farther than her mama ever had. The world wasn't ready for her − but she was ready to take it head on. 

16

She fell in love and in lust with the farmer’s son and he opened up to her a whole new world of joy and bliss. Johnny was the youngest of seven sons all more handsome and dashing and ever cheerful as the next, but the older six might as well have been boring and hideous for how little she cared. The other boys faded away into nothing, even that banker and that carpenter. There was only Johnny’s puppy smile and the kisses he gave her, sweeter than honey, spicier than hot peppers. Together, from good kids they made each other disobedient and the hay barn saw plenty more than they would have confessed. He made her laugh, he made her feel warm and fuzzy and so very special, the most special girl in the world. He called her a lady and begged her to let him ask for her hand in marriage. She laughed in his face and told him there was no need for marriage when they already had each other in their arms here in a bed of sneaking around. 

17

Their wedding was a sad expedient affair decided in a hurry to save her honor. She saw in all the eyes around town that her honor was well tainted despite it. Seventeen and pregnant, a belly growing every day with the alien Johnny had planted there. He found them a house, worked hard to provide for what would soon be a family, their very own family. She loved him, but she hated him a little too for the future she might have had and now never would. The bottle became her comfort throughout the lonely days at home, out and about playing cards and losing their hard won cash when she could still walk and wallowing bedridden by the time she was too sore to move an inch. She wondered where that ninth cloud had gone where they used to spend their days and nights together. Drowned down in her drunken debts, likely as not. 

18

Her little baby Emily showed her wailing face into the world in a gush of blood and shit and all the woes of fate were briefly forgotten. It wasn’t that she had stopped resenting Johnny, but even she could admit that his smile looked all the prettier when it was on their daughter’s little face, growing a tad more like him every day. There was some of herself in her too, a blend of two people who might not have stuck together nearly as long without her. They moved to Missouri away from her debt and her dreams, but she had all the hope she could still muster inside herself whenever she looked down at the baby’s smiles. The days weren’t quite as lonely when she got to spend them with such a precious child.

19

Her comfort was the correspondence she maintained with her parents. Her father had never liked Johnny − perhaps for good reasons − but both he and her mother relished in the snippets of the daily life she sent about Emily. The girl was babbling and toddling around by now and no letter could ever give the exact account of how pretty her gray eyes, how soft her baby hair, but letter after letter, she still tried. A part of her was craving to ask Eleanor how she had done it all, raising children and keeping a home without losing her own self in it. She feared she might break Johnny’s heart if he ever caught such words, though, and kept her doubts to herself. There would always be time to ask her when the kid would be older. 

20

Emily was growing in personality as she began to talk and she proved just as sweet when she could express her thoughts as she had been since birth with her smiles and her gentle nature. She loved to be helpful around the homestead, though the help often made a much bigger mess than if she had kept to herself. Johnny adored her and all days tried to make her laugh with goofy jokes the girl did not yet understand, but she loved her daddy too much not to burst out laughing anyways at the slightest funny face he pulled. She loved her mama, too, always hiding in her skirts and asking for cuddles. Often, Sue told herself that they had won the most precious prize in the world, the easiest child to parent for two lost kids like them with no idea how to be a mother and a father. Day by day, they were learning, but life was a strict teacher and the lessons were hard. 

21

Only for Eleanor’s funeral was Sue capable of affording the trip back home. Her father, now Grandpa Richie, was rapidly losing himself and after they had buried her mother, she made the grief of mama and dad at once, for she would never again know them like she had. His talk was more incoherent than ever and although he was the most devoted grandfather from the start to little Emily, she constantly had to pass behind him to wipe from her thoughts the idiocies he seeded there. He came home with them in Missouri and of the two men in her life, Sue couldn’t have said which got on her nerves the more, their constant bickering. At least their bumbling around was endearing too, but at a mere twenty-one she felt mother to three rather than the one. 

22

She taught Emily her letters as they worked around the homestead. In the morning, they milked the cows and recited the alphabet, then they cleaned the house and learned how to count. For lunch they cooked and learned fractions and on a good night they settled into an armchair together to read about history and science and everything a well read young lady ought to know. Emily had a mind to learn but her favorite stories of all weren’t the ones that taught of facts or great deeds ; they were the love stories. She had a heart that went far beyond what her wit was already greatly capable of. Grandpa Richie loved to teach her all his old tricks, Johnny pretended to know the answers to all her questions. They were dirt poor, but repaid with love everything the girl might have been lacking.

23

She wondered if all marriages were so. It wasn’t that she fought with Johnny all that often. Avoidance more than arguing was his style when he knew she had reasons to be wroth and all on her own Sue had to handle a child and a parent at home when Johnny made himself scarce. Richie hated him more with every passing day and she tried as she might to breach the rift between them, no matter how much she wanted to dig it deep. Were all wives lonely like this? The affection between wife and husband was no longer the spark of adolescence and it seemed unlikely Emily would get a sibling any time soon, so in the meantime mother and daughter were each other’s best friends. She had used to be surrounded with young girl friends, but all of them were now married off just as she was. Seeing the same faces every day, trapped between the same three people, she felt less sociable than she had ever been. 

24

She found the old familiar comfort of a glass of hard liquor after putting the girl and the grandpa to bed. Most nights, more than just the one. It made the morning hell, but gave her something to look forward to all day. At least, she had had the strength of heart to forgo gambling entirely and leave it in the past for good. Having to be a bastion of righteousness to raise a proper home despite her husband, she could allow herself only the one vice. Every cent they got was spent putting clothes on their daughter’s back, books in her hands, food in her mouth. The extra was for her sinful evenings, but nobody needed to know about those. Lying to Johnny had never been easier. 

25

One moment, she was cleaning up dinner for the family while Johnny brushed Emily’s hair for the night and put her to bed, and the next she was sat down by him and made to confess all her shortcomings as a wife. He didn’t put it that way, of course, her ever optimistic husband who couldn’t insult a puddle of cow shit if he thought she liked it. Her hands in his, a softness in his eyes, he voiced his concerns for her and for the first time in many years, Sue felt seen and listened to. She felt like a beloved wife, truly worthy of cherishing. They kissed and though her hands shook with craving for many days after that, the bottles they had emptied into the fields were never replenished. 

26

Peter was born a strange frog-like little creature, the most beautiful boy ever to bless the surface of the earth. He was whiny and fragile and Sue made Emily promise always to look after him. The girl took her duties of big sister as seriously as a child ever could. All day, she kept the boy near her while she read her lessons and the arrangement was perfect in this way, giving the elder child someone to talk to and the younger one someone to watch over him. Johnny was doting on the newborn, Richie, though now more senile than sane, adored the child and told him stories of the old days when he thought Sue wasn’t hearing. She was resting from the pains of birth but with a baby in her arms and a darling girl always around, the pain was quite easy to forget. 

27

Emily was the greatest helper of the house − far greater, for sure, than her father. She seemed to take such a joy in it, all the duties of a homestead housewife, and always had a smile on her face to help out. It was like she was more ready to be a wife now that she was not yet in her teens than Sue had been all these years. Of course, one got used to it, the responsibilities of keeping an orderly home, but to do something often and to do it gladly were two distinct acts. Emily seemed to blur the line between the two so easily. Always, Sue admired her daughter for the strength the child had possessed from the start. There was power in her good cheer, her tender ways that longed to be devoted to the ones she loved. Daughter and father weren’t that much different.

28

The moment she had dreaded all these years arrived when Emily in confidence admitted to Sue that she had a crush on one of the boys in town. Sue scolded her for it and told her to go back home and think of the good Lord, but the evil was done and the seed of romance had been planted into the girl’s head. What good was romance to put food on the table, to keep a roof over their heads? She thought of her mother, who once had told her that love was the most beautiful thing in the world and ought to be followed at all cost. It wasn’t love that had put her to an early grave, at least, but love had not saved her from it either. She thought of how much she had loved Johnny when there was nothing else to concern herself with. If only Emily could truly understand all the woes that could come from a little crush, then she would run from all boys like they were devil incarnate. Until the girl understood it well, Sue would keep them away for her sake. 

29

Just after her twelfth birthday, poor Emily became a woman with a stain of dirty red-brown on the fresh sheets of her bed. Sue sent out all the boys, even baby Peter who was barely out of diapers and already full of mischief, and spent a good hour giving her dear daughter as accurate descriptions as she could on the intricacies of childbirth. She was no expert, having gone through it only twice and certainly less than most women in town, but she knew her fair share and more than enough to not wish it on her darling girl for all the gold in the world. Emily spent the next few days in moderate pain, but little of that was due to the bleeding. If she was afraid, then Sue was only half sorry for it. If the fear of consequences kept her from wrongdoings, it was a godly fear to instill in her. 

30

Peter started to talk just about the time Emily stopped to. The girl wasn’t truly silent, of course, but entering her teen years had turned her moodier than she had been in her life. She seldom talked back, but her frowns and groans were as good as a caustic retort and Sue was desperate to get her sweet baby girl again, the one who had brightened all her days and who could still be such a gentle soul when she didn’t catch herself at it. Perhaps to compensate, Peter was turning into a curious and clever young boy, though keeping an eye on him was a two or three person job and Grandpa Richie was no longer quite up for it and Johnny never really capable of controlling the boy’s sense of chaos he deep down approved of. With a grumpy young teenager and a half wild sweet boy, Sue had her hands more than full at home. It was a distraction from herself, she supposed, which couldn’t be half bad. 

31

The children were too apart in age to be playing much together, but they were united in one thing which kept surprising her. Both of them showed unabashed preference towards her, even over Grandpa Richie who kept shoving sweets in their pockets and telling them funny stories. It wasn’t that Johnny made no effort. He was as affectionate a father as could be, always the word to make the children smile, yet whenever they were hurting or needing whichever reassurance, it was always towards their mother that they turned. When they lashed out too, the outburst was always milder against her. Sue had no idea what she might have done to earn such affection, but she repaid it as best as she could. Softness did not come easy to her and it never had, but no one was ever as deserving of it as her two babies. 

32

Some days, she felt like she was living another woman’s life, one who knew what she was doing, how to lead a house and a family. She did everything that this other woman would do, protecting her children and her father, putting up with the husband that came with it, but the motions were not truly her own. The emotions were real, though hard to decipher beyond the broadest notions of utter devotion to her children and some romantic feelings lingering for her husband. She loved him despite it all, the way he always kissed her cheek first thing coming home, how he kept her bed warm and played with the children, how he never ever talked back to all the crap Grandpa Richie gave him. There were worse husbands to have, even though he was spineless and too easily distracted for the family’s wellbeing. She could grow to love him as much as she had again, she told herself. Then Johnny set the farm on fire. 

33

It took crossing the country and nearly dying a thousand times for her to fall in love with Johnny a second time and how much deeper, better than the first. How much more she adored her baby daughter now that she had known the sorrow of missing her. How close she kept her father after having abandoned him, her son after learning just how much the boy needed her. They settled into their new land with a smile in their hearts and no home had ever been as lively as theirs. 

34

Johnny’s kisses were sweeter than honey, spicier than hot peppers when he took her hands and led them somewhere hidden to sneak around not so much from her father as from the kids. There was a joy like nothing else in being his wife, in letting his love flow naturally and plentifully for her to receive. He was a good, good loyal dog of a husband and she loved him more than ever, more than she had when they were disobedient kids. He knew her so intrinsically now and she knew that, even when her own emotions were foreign to herself, he was there to help her untangle them to make sense of her own mind. She knew that he would always, always support her and she knew that she would always trust him in return. She had now been married to him for half of her life. She was ready for the rest of it, too. 

35

Their third child was born in the late summer when the fruit was ripest and the fields golden and warm. Eleanor had a smile on her pretty face and bawled so loud as to be heard in all of Oregon. With the comfort they had bought themselves, Sue would never have to worry about feeding this one, about keeping her warm and sheltered. All she could concern herself with was making sure the older ones took good care of her. Emily was as good as grown, Peter more interested in swimming in the duck pond than in any baby sister most of the time, but both of them doted on the newborn about as much as her father and grandfather. Sue had never seen Johnny as involved in the raising of his children than now in Oregon. The clean air, perhaps. She held her girl close and breathed her in deeply. No sunny valley, no field full of crops would ever smell quite as sweet as this one. 

36

Baby Eleanor in his arms, Grandpa Richie swirled into a waltz as he hummed an old tune. The children, amused by the spectacle, soon joined in and although Peter stepped on Emily’s feet more than once, both of them were giggling together and the boy was whistling the melody with his grandfather. Johnny offered Sue a hand to pull her into a dance. It wasn’t quite the faster pace she had imagined in her youth, a more extravagant kind of performance, but it was an embrace with the man she loved and it was all she wanted to dance for the rest of her life. She kissed him and the dancing stopped altogether, but there would be other times. There was always time for more of the sweet things in life. 

37

With all the confidence of youth, Emily came and begged her parents for the permission to let a young man court her. They had met around town and had been catching very tender feelings for one another but, always the willingness to please her parents, Emily did not want to sneak around and would much rather have their blessing in this budding relationship. The permission was readily given, even Grandpa Richie’s approval, and the young pair could be found exchanging sweet letters and words of love to one another, the fools. She might marry him some day, or she might not. The choice was hers alone and all Sue could do was to ensure that it was as free a choice as could be. And whichever way at all, Emily would always know she could stay here as long as she wished. She was, after all, the one who had made their house a home.

**Author's Note:**

> I would like to state for the record that in the show version of the names (Jack Bauer, Slippery When Wet, Mouthface, Craphole and Titty Mitty), the baby girl’s name would be Horse Girl.


End file.
